


Autumn

by raewise



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Fluff, Getting Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-18
Updated: 2015-03-18
Packaged: 2018-03-18 10:47:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3566834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raewise/pseuds/raewise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Autumn in Kirkwall is the only time Anders can even stand it. Perhaps it has something to do with Fenris.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Autumn

Autumn in Kirkwall consisted of lazy afternoons and brilliant orange evenings. The salty air was soft and tired, giving the city a break from the humidity of the summers and brutal chill of the winters. It felt peaceful, like back in Vigil’s Keep when Nathaniel stopped brooding, Velanna quit spitting venom, Oghren had drunk himself into a stupor, and Anders could just relax. The buzz of the Keep calmed for a moment, and the Warden-Commander ceased her rounds and sat back for light conversation with one of her subordinates, or perhaps wrote a letter to her family in the Alienage. He remembered those moments fondly, when he didn’t have to listen to the archdemons in his head, the pulse of darkspawn beneath his skin.

He also liked how Fenris’s white hair appeared autumn, reflecting the sky’s tones. His dark skin seemed warmer, and his eyes weren’t so cold. He seemed content, like a cat that could curl up and take a nap, rather than a wolf on the prowl. He didn’t seem as distant, as if he was comfortable in his skin for once. Sometimes, while Hawke was dealing with some merchant Anders noticed Fenris’s eyes wander. It was a pleasant sight, compared to his normally stiff, hunched over posture. Sometimes their eyes would meet, and while his didn’t smile with his lips, the man inside let his eyebrows slide up his face and his pretty eyes sparkle. Anders considered that close enough.

During battles, things flowed so smoothly Anders could let his focus slide to Fenris every once in a while. He admired the way his lithe body lifted his sword, how his nimble feet danced across the ground, how his markings wrapped around his neck and face, the sweat dripping beneath his armour.

The man was a tornado. He was how Anders’s heart raced, how it pumped his tainted blood through his body, slowly killing him. Looking at Fenris reminded him of his Joining, the relief he felt to finally stop running for a second and just… be safe. He was the Warden-Commander’s trusting gaze as she lowered her guard. Fenris saved him more times than he could count, and didn’t even seem to realize it. He was a simple, passive sort of beauty that Anders couldn’t help but to admire.

Their first kiss was on a cool Autumn evening in Anders’s clinic after he closed for the night. Anders had finished healing a nasty wound on Hawke’s leg, saying a quick goodbye to his friend and sat down on his musty cot when he heard the wooden door creak open.

His head shot up, surprised. All the locals knew he closed—

Fenris was standing there, his typical scowl on his face, sword strapped to his back. He looked on edge, like he wasn’t too sure what to expect, being here in the mage’s home alone for the first time.

“Hello?” Anders said, confused.

Fenris blinked at him, grounding himself. He took a deep breath, then closed the distance between them until there was less than a metre separating the two of them. Anders’s voice hitched in his throat. When was the last time they’d been so close?

“I wished to discuss something with you, mage—” He shook his head, hard, like he was jostling something around in there. “Anders.” There was a bit to his words, a grind to his teeth.

“Um.”

Fenris stared at him with his sea glass eyes, unimpressed. “You stare at me.”

Anders stands there, unsure of what to do, unsure of when he stood up. “There’s a lot to stare at.” He saw the elf’s adam’s apple bob.

“Flatterer.”

Anders didn’t know what to say to this.

Fenris stepped closer, their chests almost touching. “I think I understand you now,” the shorter man said. “You run because you feel the need to. You don’t understand what bad things will happen if you get sent back to the Circle, but you know you want to be free.”

“I want to be trusted. I want to be Anders,” he found himself muttering. That was it, wasn’t it? He wanted someone who understood what it felt like to be trapped. The Warden-Commander understood. Hawke nearly understood. Fenris… he perhaps knew better than anyone.

Fenris actually smiled at this, a genuine, small smile that started at his lips and spread out across his face. He had dimples, Anders noticed as he leaned down and closed what was left of the gap between them.

Darktown was almost habitable in Autumn, and with a content elf to share the time with him, Anders could feel at peace.


End file.
